Blizzard has recently explained the nerfs that D.Va received in Overwatch.
On the Battle.net forums, Principal Designer Geoff Goodman explained the recent changes made to D.Va: “Keep in mind her spread didn’t actually change, but her shots ‘fill in’ her spread more evenly now, meaning her damage per shot is generally more consistent. For example, in the video provided from the live game, if you take that same shot multiple times you’ll see a greater diversity in damage results than you would on the PTR, because sometimes some of those bullets would just miss. Overall though, the change to her damage is intended to be a small nerf.
“As for her health/armor, the bottom line is shes intended to be weaker vs faster firing weapons (and shotguns), such as Reaper and Tracer… As she was, it was common to hear people ask ‘What do I do about D.Va?’. People often would try to use Zarya or Roadhog, since they both have the potential to deal high damage and pierce her Matrix, but even those answers were marginal at best. Heroes like Reaper that are generally supposed to be good at taking down tanks weren’t very effective because of all the armor they had to get through. With lowered armor, she now has more legitimate counters and she still counters many heroes and abilities in the game, especially considering her Defense Matrix wasn’t touched.”
D.Va isn’t the only character in Overwatch to recently undergo changes. Roadhog recently saw changes, especially in how his hook worked. The duration to Ana’s Biotic Grenade has been reduced from 5s to 4s, and Sombra’s Hack cooldown has been reduced from 12s to 8s.
Overwatch is available now for PC, PlayStation 4, and Xbox One.